What are reasonable and necessary supports

An NDIS support is the practical description of how you will be assisted under the NDIS. Supports are the things we provide or fund to help to meet your disability support needs.

NDIS supports are the services, items and equipment we can fund or provide under the NDIS.

There are two types of NDIS supports we can include in your NDIS plan. We call them ‘general supports’ and ‘reasonable and necessary supports’. 

General supports

General supports are the coordination, strategic or referral services and activities we provide, or arrange to be provided, for you. They’re how we help you develop your NDIS plan and connect with supports and activities in your community. This includes your mainstream, community and informal supports. Learn more in Creating your plan.

Reasonable and necessary supports

Reasonable and necessary supports are the supports we fund in your plan to meet your disability support needs.  You can use this funding to buy supports from service providers .

The Australian Government made laws about what we can fund under the NDIS. All supports we fund in a plan need to meet the criteria set out in these laws. We call these the NDIS funding criteria

To meet the NDIS funding criteria, a support must meet both the following criteria: 

We call supports that meet the NDIS funding criteria ‘reasonable and necessary supports’.

Each individual reasonable and necessary support in your plan must meet the NDIS funding criteria. Your whole plan as a package of supports must also meet the NDIS funding criteria.

We check your overall plan to make sure all your supports make sense together. This means we check that your supports and the amount of supports will complement each other to help you fulfil an  ordinary life.  Learn more about reasonable and necessary supports.

If you need a new support, which now means your overall package of supports doesn’t meet the NDIS funding criteria anymore, we may either:

•    not include the new support in your plan•    include the new support in your plan, but also reduce the other supports in your plan.

For example, a home modification may reduce your need for other supports. If we plan to fund a home modification, we will need to take that home modification into account when considering what other supports are reasonable and necessary, such as the amount of care you need at home.

This page current as of
16 October 2023
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